Have you noticed your Facebook friends saying this?

Over the past day or two, you may have noticed your Facebook friends saying things like "If you get a friend request from me, please ignore it," or "PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT A NEW friendship FROM ME AT THIS TIME."

You may have been really confused as to what they're talking about, but it's all in reference to a hoax doing the rounds that seems to have caught them out.

A chain message is being sent around, which claims that people are 'cloning' some users' accounts in a bid to extract personal information from friends and family.

The message reads:

"Hi....I actually got another friend request from you which I ignored so you may want to check your account. Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears...then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too....I had to do the people individually."

The aim is to make the reader believe their account has been copied and lead them to forwarding it on.

Facebook users are concerned about a chain message, claiming their account has been cloned.

Facebook themselves, however, have said these messages don't bring with them any danger.

Speaking to the Sun, a spokesperson said "We’ve heard that some people are seeing posts or messages about accounts being cloned on Facebook... Claiming to be another person on Facebook violates our Community Standards, and we have a dedicated team that’s tasked with helping to detect and block these kinds of scams."

The rep said "We have made several recent improvements to combat impersonation, including image recognition technology, automation to detect scams, and improved reporting abilities. We encourage people to let us know about impersonating accounts using the reporting tools available here: https://www.facebook.com/help/fakeaccount. Our teams review each one and take the appropriate action—including setting checkpoints (which require you to provide additional information in order to proceed) or shutting down profiles if necessary."